Two Are Better Than One
by Amicitia1
Summary: A new character and other fun stuff. Probably could be G, but body-switching always gets a bit messy. Completed, I think.
1. The Girl With No Shadow

A/N: Only saying this once, so pay attention. With the exception of Diane, all the characters in this story belong to some guy with a really cool job. Sorry if my character looks like anyone else's, she's my own creation. Oh, and I don't write in accents, because they're annoying. You know what the characters sound like.  
  
**********  
  
Kurt raced down the sidewalk. Blast this running-on-two-legs business! Jean would kill him if he was late to another one of her soccer games. And unfortunately, being late was one of his skills.  
  
He glanced at his watch. June 3rd, 5:59 PM. He had one minute to get to the field. The street was empty.  
  
"I'll 'port behind the old gym shed," he decided. "No one will see me."  
  
He teleported.  
  
And hit something.  
  
**********  
  
"Unh..."  
  
Kurt was awake, and he was alive. That was two big points in his favor. He didn't really feel like opening his eyes yet, but he knew how to scan his limbs for injury.  
  
One, everything okay there. Two. Three. Four. Fi- no, not okay there. He had lost all feeling in his tail.  
  
He reached gently for his bottom, and amended his previous statement. He had lost his tail. Since his brain was still blurry from the crash, this didn't really bother him until several seconds later, when it suddenly seemed very important. His eyes flew open. It was going to be one of those days.  
  
Number one, he had switched bodies again.  
  
Number two, he was currently occupying a female body.  
  
Number three, it was not the body of any female he knew.  
  
(A/N: About number one. For more body-switching fun with Kurt, go find So Into You by InterNutter and Switched! by Jamie August. Now back to this story.)  
  
Kurt carefully removed himself from the ground and sat up. His usual body was lying next to him. He wondered who was living in it at the moment. More importantly, he wondered how he was going to explain this to her. The holowatch was still working, thank goodness, but the girl was going to feel mighty strange when she woke up.  
  
Which she did, as if on cue. The eyes which formerly belonged to Kurt fluttered open and slowly focused on him. The girl was either taking this very well, or not fully awake yet.  
  
"Um, hi," Kurt said in the girl's voice. "There seems to have been a little mix-up."  
  
"I'm getting that," she mumbled.  
  
Silence. How *was* he going to explain this?  
  
"How did you get here?" the girl asked in Kurt's voice.  
  
"Um..."  
  
"There was no one here, and then...I blacked out."  
  
"I must have, um, run into you," Kurt lied quickly.  
  
The girl shook her head weakly. "No...I always know if there's someone around me. Unless...were you invisible or something?"  
  
Kurt forced a laugh. "Ha ha...invisibility...you know that's impossible."  
  
More silence.  
  
"Let's play a game," the girl said suddenly. "How many of us are here?"  
  
"Two." What was she getting at?  
  
"How many shadows are on the wall?"  
  
Kurt thought about this. The sun was gently setting in the west, the wall of the old shed was just east of them. "Two?"  
  
"Wrong, you lose."  
  
Kurt looked at the wall. His own body, possessed by the girl, threw a low shadow across the peeling white paint. His current body, on the other hand, did not.  
  
"One of my powers. What's yours?"  
  
Kurt jumped. "Er..." 'Don't panic!,' he shouted at himself. "I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
She looked up at him from her position on the ground. "Mutant powers. What's yours, if not invisibility?"  
  
"I...I'm not..."  
  
"You lie so badly. I'm a mutant. You're a mutant. Get over it."  
  
This girl was smart. Kurt could only hope she was telling the truth. He sighed. What choice did he have?  
  
"My name's Kurt. I teleport."  
  
"'Spose that would work."  
  
"What's your power?" Might as well have everything out in the open.  
  
"So long as you're in my body, I'm not telling," she replied. "Not something you should mess with."  
  
"Are you at least going to tell me your name?"  
  
"Oh! Diane. Are you going to tell me why I can't get up?"  
  
He'd been hoping to delay that. Sigh. "I..." he searched for good words, "have more mutant features than most."  
  
"And?"  
  
"That big watch you're wearing is a holographic image inducer. Don't turn it off! You'd better have some advance warning."  
  
Diane turned away from the watch. "I'm listening."  
  
Sigh. "Today you are blue and furry."  
  
"You're kidding me."  
  
He shook his head...her head. "There's a reason I use the hologram."  
  
"Fine, what else?"  
  
"You get three fingers per hand."  
  
"Good, I thought I'd lost some."  
  
"You have a tail."  
  
"I'll deal."  
  
"And the strangest feet you've ever seen."  
  
"There's the problem. You going to help me get up now?"  
  
'Well, she took that pretty well, considering,' Kurt thought. He reached over and turned off the image inducer.  
  
Diane looked over her temporary body. "Kurt...I'm not dealing."  
  
"You don't get a choice." He grabbed his former arm and hauled her up. "We're going back to the Institute. I live there, the Professor can fix this. We'll take the back streets."  
  
"Why not teleport?"  
  
"Because you'll kill yourself, or me, or something. It is not for the inexperienced."  
  
It was beginning to get dark. "Oh, and as a bonus," Kurt said, "you get night vision."  
  
"Is that all?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You, my friend," Diane announced to him, "get perfect 20/20 vision in any lighting or lack thereof, plus ultraviolet and infrared spectrums."  
  
Kurt had never before used the word "lame" to describe his eyes.  
  
"Is that what all these colors are? I thought I hit my head."  
  
"Nope, you're stuck with them."  
  
"At least we can see where we're going."  
  
Together they shuffled through the darkness, Kurt more or less carrying his former body. At least he didn't weigh much.  
  
**********  
  
A/N: And that's chapter one. Two coming soon, if anyone likes this. 


	2. Problem Solved, Hopefully

A/N: Chapter 2 is here! I think I'm done with the story, so the rest will be up soon. Enjoy!  
  
**********  
  
By the time they reached the Institute, Diane had her temporary feet more or less figured out, and they walked in together. There they had the misfortune of meeting Kitty in the hall.  
  
"Kuurt," Kitty said disapprovingly. "You know the rules about guests."  
  
Kurt helped Diane to the couch, though to Kitty it looked the other way around.  
  
"Kitty," he said as he walked back to her.  
  
"Like, do I know you?" she asked nervously.  
  
"Remember that day when I was you and you were me?"  
  
Kitty grew noticeably paler. "Kurt?"  
  
"Ja."  
  
"I think I'm going to faint."  
  
Kurt helped her into a chair and gave her a minute to think. When she recovered, the questions started.  
  
"Okay, who have you switched with today?"  
  
"Diane. Thank Gott she's one of us," he explained.  
  
"She's a-"  
  
"Ja."  
  
"And what are you going to do now?"  
  
"I was hoping the Professor had an answer for that."  
  
"He's in his study."  
  
"Would you..."  
  
"Yeah, sure."  
  
Kitty phased into the study. Kurt sank into a chair and put Diane's head in her hands. Why did all these things have to happen to him?  
  
Too soon, him and Diane were wanted in the study. He helped his counterpart change seats, and hoped the Professor had a brilliant idea.  
  
"I think I have a solution," the Professor mused. "But I need Jean home from the soccer game."   
  
Kurt sighed. It was going to be a long night.  
  
**********  
  
Of course, this game had to be the one to run into overtime. Meanwhile, Diane had gotten pretty good at scooting around in Kurt's feet, and was busily exploring the mansion. Kurt followed to make sure she didn't destroy anything.  
  
On the rear of an inexperienced elf, a tail was quite a liability. It knocked over two vases and got stepped on three times within an hour. And then Diane found the kitchen.  
  
"Starved," she announced. "What's for eats?" She dived into the refrigerator without waiting for an answer.  
  
Kurt fell thankfully into a chair. It was hard work, watching someone else be him. "Comes with the body," he explained wearily.  
  
"You want anything?" Diane asked around a mouthful of hastily-prepared sandwich.  
  
Surprisingly, he wasn't hungry at all. "No...don't you ever eat?"  
  
"Not often. I-" she paused and chewed thoughtfully. "Reckon I photosynthesize, mostly."  
  
"Photo-what?"  
  
"Y'know, like plants," Diane continued gorging Kurt's body. "'Nother effect of my powers. Started a couple years ago. My parents thought I was going anorexic or something, but I didn't lose any weight.  
  
"Hey, I could get used to your ears," she added suddenly. "I think one of your friends just got home."  
  
It was Jean. Kurt watched her go into the Professor's study. He thought he'd better go too, and dragged Diane with him, despite her loud protests.  
  
In the study, the Professor explained the situation again, for Jean's benefit. "Your minds have been switched," was the conclusion he finally came to. "If Jean and I can temporarily assume your consciousnesses, we may be able to fix this."  
  
"I don't know if I can, Professor," Jean said nervously.  
  
"We have to try," the Professor replied calmly. "It would be best if Kurt and Diane slept while we worked." He called Ororo telepathically.  
  
A moment later she appeared in the doorway. "Ororo, would you kindly prepare two sleeping drafts?" he requested.  
  
"Yes, Professor," the tall woman turned and left.  
  
**********  
  
It was warm...Kurt's borrowed eyelids felt heavy, and he drifted into sleep. Peace at last.  
  
The Professor put his hands gently on the forehead of one sleeping mutant, and Jean did the same for the other.  
  
"Remember who you are, Jean," the Professor warned. "Don't become confused."  
  
Jean nodded, and began to absorb all of Kurt's thoughts and memories. 


	3. Good Old Days

Kurt sat in the back of a wagon, swinging his feet from the edge, watching the scenery go by. He couldn't wait to see the next town. He loved the circus life; popping in, delighting people, and moving on.  
  
Soon they arrived in a small town in Eastern Europe. His friends began pitching tents, and he ran off to explore the grounds before they became crowded with strangers. As long as he was performing, he was safe. The audience wondered how he flew so gracefully, how he did it in that ridiculous costume, how he supported himself with that fake tail. But it was his right as a performer to keep secrets. His public was content with the magic and mystery. Outside the tent, it was a different world. If he ever made the mistake of showing his face out there, merciless tail-pulling would follow as curious circus-goers tried to remove his costume. It never ended well.  
  
But this morning, the grounds were his. Kurt scrambled up a tree to look out over the surrounding fields.  
  
"Kurt!" called a familiar voice from below. It was one of his troupe-mates. "Practice time."  
  
There was nothing he loved more. Kurt was out of the tree in seconds, racing for the big tent. His friends knew him, didn't care if he laughed, shouted, and improvised. Which he did with wild abandon.  
  
Eventually they made him get down so they could set up for that afternoon's performance. As Kurt wandered out of the tent, he heard two men talking around the corner, and crouched down to listen.  
  
"The boy is our star!" said a voice Kurt recognized as the circus owner. "You can't have him."  
  
"Boy?" said an unfamiliar voice in surprise.  
  
"The lad is no more than seven."  
  
"Seven!" was the incredulous reply. "In all his life, the General has seen no one give such a show."  
  
Why did this man refer to himself in the third person? Kurt's mother had broken him of that habit long ago. He would have thought this man very stupid, if Mama had not also taught him to look for the good in people.  
  
"He is talented, indeed." Kurt swelled at the praise from the owner.  
  
"Why the costume, though?"  
  
"It is no costume."  
  
"If it is no costume, the boy is a fr-"  
  
"Sir!" interrupted the owner. "We do not call him that. Here, we judge him only by his talent."  
  
A funny noise from the General. "I must have this boy for my circus."  
  
"He is happy here, and here he shall stay," the owner insisted.  
  
"You will regret this," the General said as he stomped off.  
  
**********  
  
That afternoon, Kurt gave the performance of a lifetime, just for the owner. He was not interested in the wild cheering of the audience. He only wanted to be sure of staying with the company he loved.  
  
As he snuck out the back of the tent, someone grabbed him around the middle like a sack of peanuts. He struggled, but his attacker was too strong.  
  
"Now you belong to the General," a voice growled in his ear.  
  
That was the last he saw of his friends and family for a long time.  
  
**********  
  
Jean took her hands away. Her head was reeling. She had to put Kurt back into his own head. Maybe then the memories would go away... 


	4. A Star Is Born

Diane sat quietly in kindergarten. "Red. Blue. Yellow. Green," the teacher repeated.  
  
Diane knew red, blue, yellow, and green. Why didn't they ever tell her the names of the other colors?  
  
She had tried asking once, in the garden. "Mommy," she said. "What color is this flower?"  
  
"Red," her mother had answered.  
  
"No, mommy," Diane argued. "Your shirt is red. What color is this flower?"  
  
Her mother looked down. Her shirt was red. The flower was red. They were even a similar shade of red. "Red," she said again.  
  
Diane went inside, disappointed. Why were they keeping secrets from her?  
  
The bell rang, and Diane jerked back to the present. Recess. She followed the other kids out the door and sat under a tree, wondering why she felt so different.  
  
A shadow came over her, and she looked up into the face of the class bully. "Weirdo!" he shouted. "Why don't you play like the rest of us?" He kicked dirt in her face. Her classmates laughed. Diane cried.  
  
And light drained from the playground, as if the sun was burning out. The other children looked up, but it was a cloudless morning. The familiar surroundings were lost in a deep shadow.  
  
Diane didn't even realize her classmates couldn't see. Under cover of darkness, she ran all the way home. When she reached her room, she threw herself into bed and wrapped her arms around her teddy, Little Bear. Holding him always made her feel better.  
  
The tears stopped. The darkness lifted. Diane's fingers glowed faintly, and Little Bear shone like a star.  
  
A knock at the door startled her, and she dropped the stuffed animal. The lighting returned to normal as her mother entered the room. She turned her back to close the door.  
  
"Mommy..." said a small voice behind her. When she turned around again, Diane was holding a tiny ball of light in her outstretched hand.  
  
"What...how did you...?"  
  
"I...I just..." Diane held out her other hand, palm up, and a second small light flickered into existence.  
  
Her mother sank slowly onto the bed. The girl who never used a light switch was glowing like an incandescent bulb. "My daughter," she said slowly, "is a mutant."  
  
Diane stayed home from school for the rest of the week.  
  
And then they moved to the country.  
  
**********  
  
'So that is the girl's story,' Xavier thought as he removed his hands. He was relieved to know she had been telling the truth.  
  
He switched places with Jean to put the two teenagers back in their own bodies. So far, so good. 


	5. New Moon

A/N: I'm calling this the end of the story. Yell at me if you don't like it.  
  
Diane was aware of laying in a very soft bed. She slowly opened her eyes. She was in a room she did not recognize, but it was one she wouldn't mind getting to know. Sunlight streamed through an enormous window. What time was it?  
  
She rolled over and looked at the clock on the bedside table. 10:00 AM. There was also a note on the table.  
  
"Diane, You are excused from school today. Feel free to explore the mansion. If you like it, you are welcome to stay with us. Prof. X."  
  
Well, explore she would. The room was as good a place as any to start. Diane's attention was drawn immediately to the window. It was also a door, which led to a south-facing balcony. Perfect.  
  
Next in importance was the mirror. Even before looking, Diane knew she was a mess. She would have to find the bathroom later. It had been quite a while since she'd had a proper shower.  
  
Then she remembered her clothes were a mess too. She had only one outfit, and couldn't exactly shower and do laundry at the same time. Maybe someone had left some old clothes in the closet...  
Diane threw open the folding doors and gasped. Inside was a whole rack of clothes, exactly her size. Most interesting was a black jumpsuit with white trim.  
  
But, about that shower.  
  
**********  
  
Refreshed, washed, and dressed in new clothes, Diane leaped down the front staircase into the hall. She banged loudly on the study door and immediately let herself in.  
  
The Professor looked up. "Ah, good morning, Diane," he greeted her.  
  
She had never been interested in small talk. She threw herself into a chair in front of the desk and got down to business. "What is this place, anyway?"  
  
Ah, the impatience of youth. "This is the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. It is a place for young mutants like yourself to find friendship and learn to control their powers," he explained. "Which reminds me, I would be interested in knowing what your powers are."  
  
In response, Diane held out her left hand. A ball of bright light floated in her palm. She held out her right hand, and a sphere of darkness appeared in it. She closed her fists, and both disappeared.  
  
"And more of the same," she said, as if that explained everything. Really, she didn't want to talk about it. It was a stupid power. Sure, she was a walking flashlight, but she could see in the dark anyway. Teleportation, now that was useful.  
  
Sensing Diane's disinterest in continuing the conversation, the Professor turned back to his work. Soon she wandered away in search of something more interesting.  
  
**********  
  
3:30, and someone was knocking at her door.  
  
"Come in!" Diane yelled.  
  
Kurt let himself in, and there was that uncomfortable moment of being stared at.  
  
"Haven't seen you properly yet," Diane said, by way of justification.  
  
"Ja, I'm kind of scary to look at," Kurt said, pretending he didn't mind.  
  
"Not so scary to look at you as to be you," she shrugged. "Then again, not so scary to be you as to face down a hungry wolf in your bedroom."  
  
"That happened to you?"  
  
"Nah, but a friend-a-mine said it happened to her once."  
  
"Oh." Pause. "You are new to Bayville?"  
  
"Pretty much," Diane said, her gaze wandering around the room. "Ran away from home, been makin' do here."  
  
"Are you going to stay with us?"  
  
"'Spose so. Better than the cardboard box I been usin'."  
  
"You've been what??" Kurt exclaimed.  
  
She glared at him. "Ever repeat that to anyone, and you'll be rethinking the upper limits of pain."  
  
Kurt had no desire to do either of those things. He quickly changed the subject. "You want to go for a walk later? After dinner?"  
  
"Sure. Whatever."  
  
Well, maybe it would have been safer to stay away from this girl. But Kurt was not one to back out of promises. Instead, he backed out of the room.  
  
**********  
  
"It's a nice night."  
  
"Ja."  
  
They continued sitting together in silence.  
  
"Do you have a code name?" Kurt asked.  
  
"A what?"  
  
"We all use nicknames around here. Mine is Nightcrawler."  
  
"Oh...no."  
  
Just them, the stillness, and a crescent moon.  
  
"Hey, wasn't the moon full earlier?" Diane said abruptly.  
  
"I have no idea."  
  
"Rhetorical question," she rolled her eyes. "I know it was."  
  
"Earlier tonight?"  
  
"Yeah..." she mused. "Oh, duh. It must be a lunar e- oh!"  
  
"What?" Kurt said in alarm.  
  
A smile spread over Diane's shadowy face. "Eclipse. That's me, now."  
  
"Ah," he sat back. "I like it. Eclipse, welcome to the X-Men." 


End file.
